Competition Topics 2015-2016

September: Open: Update Your Portfolio with New Images

Images need to have been taken since September 2014.

This topic encourages you to develop a new portfolio. The images could feature Spring/Summer travels, seasonal activities, or field trips. They could also feature skills that you obtained or projects you worked on over the Summer months.

October: One Foot

The photo must include at least one foot, and the foot must be a major element in the image. The foot may be animal, human, artificial, or an abstract impression that appears to be a foot.

Given the plasticity of the English language, there might be other plays on the definition of “foot” that a judge might find to be acceptable and indeed creative.

November: Critique (TBD)

December: People not portraits

This topic encourages the photographer to explore not only people’s faces but also the hands and other symbols of the subject’s essence (e.g., the hands and gloves of a construction worker, a violinist’s hand holding a bow or a baseball player holding a bat, the feet of a ballet dancer, etc.).

Images may portray one person or close group of people. The primary emphasis should be on the people (e.g., on the raised hands of several basketball players, but not on the basketball). Formal portraits, indoors or outdoors, are not permissible, but a “staged candid” is acceptable.

January:

Advanced: Light Modification

This involves using something to modify light sources that illuminates the subject or reaches the camera. These can include, but are not limited to, cucolorises, snoots, colored gels, and polarizing ilms or polarizing filters on the camera lens.

A cuculoris (cookie) might be something as simple as a partially open blind or a cut-out make from paper or aluminum foil.

Novice: Textures

February: Critique

March: Standing Out From the Crowd

The subject must be very different from all the others in a crowd. e.g., A black swan surrounded by white ones or a single object captured with flash while the other objects are blurred.

The subject that stands out should not stand out by the use of a photo editing technique. For example in an image of a bowl of apples, it would NOT be acceptable to make all but one apple black and white whereas taking the same photo, but having one apple stand out by controlling depth of field, would be acceptable.